I found....

....fruit!! Thanks to Sue Dennis's comment on my last fruit post we went to the basement of the departments stores and sure enough - fruit. Although, this being Japan it was beautifully presented gift wrapped fruit.

They even had those elusive kiwi fruit all dressed up in shawls...

Ironically just around the corner from the Fukuyama department store we stumbled on a back street greengrocer where I got a whole bag of apples for Y320 compared to the Y525 for a dressed up kiwi.

Asukasa shops

Some of the shops near the Senso-ji temple were just beautiful...

Guess what these are?

A furniture store dedicated to home altars - these were very small ones!

Fruit

Let me preface this little piece with two disclaimers. Firstly, whatever impression I am about to give we basically like Japan and are having a good time. Secondly I am in no way a health food fanatic. But, eventually if you eat moderately badly for a little time (as in Oreo snacks followed by seven-eleven sandwiches on white bread for a train picnic) your body starts to tell you what it would like to eat.

The day before yesterday mine was saying, "A piece of fruit, please." Yesterday it was saying, "Where is my fruit? I want fruit." Today it was yelling "STRAWBERRIES. NOW." At least until it gave up and started sobbing, "There is no fruit in Japan. Anywhere. It is a barren, fruitless place." It is only because I found a bottle of Tropicana 100% sweet orange juice and a jelly containing mandarin pieces and no doubt about a gazillion additives in a Seven Eleven that my fingers have agreed to co-operate with the typing of this.

Dennis decided that Japanese do not eat fruit. They eat dried fish instead. But this is not true. According to the New Zealand government (who are cock a hoop at the extent of their fruity exports to Japan), Japanese eat 56Kg of fruit per annum. Fruit consumption is lead by apples at 16kg per person, followed by watermelon and mandarins at 11kg per person. Of course they eat apples. Think about it. Where do you expect that Fuji apples come from, huh?

But, hang on a moment. The New Zealand kiwi fruit exporters might be making assumptions. I believe them when they say that they send NZ $ 225 million worth of their little hairy gooseberries up to Tokyo each year. It does not mean that anyone is eating them. They may well be sitting rotting in some modern art exhibition for all they know. I can safely say that there is not a single kiwi fruit in any city centre shop in Hiroshima. There is a lot of dried fish, Haagen Daas ice cream, Cadbury's Fruit and Nut chocolate and Pringles. But no fruit in Hiroshima. Anywhere.

Except the apple I took from the lounge at Sydney airport and slipped into my hand luggage and forgot about until just now. Oh bliss. Fruit.

Fabric Street, Textile town.

No really - it is a real place!
It took a bit of getting to and on only a pastry for breakfast so we thought we ought to fuel up first because as I warned Dennis, I can get dizzy if I go too long without food. "So what's the difference?" he said,"You get dizzy when you go into to a quilt shop anyway." Huh.

Now, he has been avoiding Japanese food and doing a good job so far ( we have eaten Italian, Indian, French, Seven-Eleven and Oreos and Anzac biscuits imported from Hobart.). But, out in this area there is no catering for tourists. And after that comment it was perfect time to inflict on him my threat to go to a local restaurant and point and smile.

There was only really this local coffee shop staffed by smiling amenable Japanese speaking women. We swirled our finger in the air and randomly pointed at the no-picture menu. We smiled. They brought us two plates of spaghetti bolognaise. Ah well. It was not food I was there for after all.

Fabric street is just outside Nippori Station ( take East exit, come out opposite the Tully's coffee house. Go to the top right corner of that plaza (which is also a bus depot) and go straight ahead. You will see banners on the lampposts declaring "Fabric Street" and on the left a little way down the famous Tomato fabric store.)

Tomato is the best with 5 floors and 2 dedicated to craft fabric. I looked at the Japanese taupes and found them a bit dull until I found these two bolts of Japanese made and designed fabrics and suddenly there was two piles of beautiful bag making fabrics! But there are plenty of other stores too.
In Tomato Dennis was dutifully trailing, carrying my potential purchases as I scouted for more. I was a few shelves away when I heard him saying, "You look as bored as I am." By the time I got round to see him commiserating with a miserable looking bearded man, an Australian woman had started laying into him, "Well, do you end up with beautiful quilts nor not?" Both men looked like they knew the answer should truthfully be yes, but were afraid to say so because it would only result in the women buying more fabric! I rescued them by trading directions to a shop stocking Liberty fabric around the corner for her pointing me to the bag handle shelf. She declared that she liked me more than Dennis, "Or," she added, rounding on her husband,"You!" and off she went to buy more!

As Dennis is really very supportive I thought I would release him from textile hell so off we went to indulge a more jointly shared passion - collecting afternoon teas at expensive hotels. In particular the Peninsula chain.

People watching in Tokyo

All these were taken around the Senso-Ji shrine.

Ginza back alleys

Ginza is known as the modern high-rise, neon clad Tokyo. But, if you turn the corner down an alley way....

Senso-ji worship

Senso-ji is very much a local working shrine but it is so busy that it is a great place to 'stalk about' with a camera. Here are some photos of people going about their business of worship:

At the entrance a mother was teaching a child to pray.Just outside the main shrine an older boy was learning how to waft incense smoke over himself from the cauldron.Adults were shaking sticks out of metal containers with one small hole in the bottom. The stick seemed to tell them which wooden drawer to open. Inside was paper which they read (? a fortune of some kind?) - in the case of this woman with great squealing and jumping up and down with glee!

The papers were then twisted carefully over wires and left at the shrine.

Tokyo day two

Tokyo is not really a city packed with sites and all looks fairly homogeneous - mostly due to being bombed flat in World war two. That is not to say, however, that there are not pockets of history and tradition if you hunt them out. It just takes a bit of work. With the help of the hotel concierge we located a tea ceremony which was not still closed for New Year. Having run the gauntlet of the security guards outside the US embassy, next door to our destination, the Hotel Okura, we were pleased to discover we were the only guests. It started with formal presentation of three different Japanese sweets and then the formal tea service with instruction on how to respond.We did the ceremony in a 'chair room' - you are supposed to pay about double for the tatami mat room but they took us in there as well.Then we went right across the city to Akusaka to the Senso-ji shrine. the main street down is lined with shops - some tacky some not so and is thronged with locals.I enjoyed prowling with the camera there and will post some more photos in subsequent posts. Dennis really needed a coffee but we struggled with the local shops as they all allow smoking and the atmosphere was quite nasty. So, he just borrowed an armchair and sat in protest in the middle of a pedestrian crossing.
Well, no, Ok. He sat in Starbucks with a corner floor to ceiling window behind him! In my defence at resorting to Starbucks, I did order Zen green tea!

Tokyo day one

We arrived at Narita airport at 6am, jumped on the exceedingly efficient Airport Limosine bus, whose staff deposited us - with much bowing and white glove wearing at the Hilton Shinjuku. There staff got our effusive gratitude by letting us check into or room some 7 hours early. We promptly put pur Qantas PJ's back on crawled back into bed and topped up the 6 hours sleep I got on the plane. Somehow it got to be mid afternoon before we got out but it was such a good idea to do that!

We went to the Imperial palace Plaza where you get a tiny sneak view over the bridge at the out of bounds palace and then went to Ginza where the 10 degree temperature and the lights felt far more Christmassy than did Australia on 25th Dec

A quick bite to eat and then back into those Qantas PJ's.... flat beds on planes are wonderful - 6 hours sleep is the difference between feeling like death and being a little tired, but 6 hours sleep is not enough to offset the time difference and the general demands of travel.

Female mathematics

It was with some regret we left Port Stewart Lodge and its private beach ladies bay this morning - it was a very sucessful 'hangout at home' weekend break within a holiday. However, when we got to the Henry Jones Art hotel back in Hobart we found that they had upgraded us and given us the harbour view we decided not to pay for, deeming that as all the rooms had these original features from the old jam factory, and we were only overnighting we could walk outside to see the yachts.

Which means that the extra dollars for the view of boats I saved can now go against the aboriginal fabric I stumbled accross in one street historic town Richmon en route.

And, even better the FQ's were $6 each but you got 4 for $22 so it was cheaper to buy 12 than 8.

Dennis would say hello but he is sitting in a corner scratching his head and counting on his fingers trying to work all that out.

Hobart fabric shops

My auntie Diana proved a willing conspirator in dumping the men in coffee shops and visiting the Hobart quilteries. There are three right in the city centre the Quilted Crow and The needlewoman (both neat but too countrified for my tastes) and the Possum patch which is behind a sewing machine shop and is, frankly, a mess. Al rather diasppointing considering how hot is was trailing around the streets to find them
The day was saved however, by the discovery of the lovely Frangipani Fabrics just 5 mins out of the city in Sandy Bay. This is a bright, cheery and welcoming shop. It stocks a range of batiks, the Amy Butler and Kaffe Fasset type ranges and aboriginal designs as well as other stuff.

Diana succumbed to an Amy Bulter bag pattern and fabric and you can guess to which shelf I headed.... in my defence - FQ's only this time not the usual half meters because one of our hand luggage bags is now feeling rather overweight and all it has in it is my Australasian fabrics! But do not feel too sorry for me - the fabric is extra wide after all!

If you like these fabrics Frangipani will mail order them to you!

Tasmania

A quick update from Tasmania - we had Christmas day with my family in Launceston then headed down to Hobart with my Uncle Barry and his wife Diana. Can you see a family resemblance? The sun hat may give away the fact that it was hot, hot, HOT in Hobart, but we still enjoyed mooching the bookshops and cruising the harbour, eating at the revolving restaurant at Wrest point casino and driving up Mount Wellington.

Barry is my father's younger brother and left home at 16 to join the Merchant Navy, having received a postcard from Hong Kong from an old school friend which gave him a glimpse of live outside his industrial home town. It was fun to catch up on the details of the family history. Turns out Barry was one of only three men who went AWOL from the Australian army having been drafted for Vietnam. As a conscientious objector he was on the lam from the military police and the Federal Police for about six months before a plan was hatched. Diana set out with their baby girl to England and Barry - a merchant seaman by trade, joined a ship with plans to jump ship in New Zealand and head for home. However, when he was on the ship the Australian government changed and the draft was abolished overnight and he was able to return to Australia and thence to England legally. A man of real character - a family member to be proud of.

Apart from those two years in England - when I was very small and do not really remember him - he has lived in Tasmania. It was funny though learn that he still occasionally used very St. Helens' phrases: his daughter was baffled when he told her to 'put wood in th'ole' (shut the door) and he was the only one in the room to laugh when I added "shift - you weren't made at Pilks." ( Please move from in front of the TV - you were not made at the local glass factory and therefore I cannot see through you.). Dennis was equally lost when I answered Barry's query about where the new stadium was to be built by describing a location in relation to buildings that were all demolished about thirty years ago!

Since we said a teary goodbye to them Dennis and I have come to Port Arthur to view the old convict station and to hang out in a cabin in the woods. This is my bath. This is my view. Need I say more?
Tomorrow we have a night back in Hobart then Japan here we come.....!